Boswell Pipes & Tobacco Northwoods

Jar note of smoky sweet fruit. Tobacco is a mostly black with dark brown and a little light brown Ribbon/Course Cut mix. Moisture content is ok, most will want to dry it a bit. Burns slow with a few extra relights. The strength is medium and nic is mild. No flavoring detected. Taste is medium to full and moderately consistent, with notes of floral, spicy, smoky incense, peaty vegetation, leather, toasted bread, wood, spices, dry herbal hay, lemon grass, citrus peel/zest, slightly acidic, musty earth, a tart fermented vinegary sour background note, and a mildly peppery or smooth retro. Latakia is leading with Cavendish and Virginia supporting. Room note is tolerable, and aftertaste is great.

Tangy, smoky, sweet wood and earth upon lighting. Mid-bowl, the marriage of the flavors has a spicy vinegar character. I definitely understand why this blend has so many fans. Smoke is rich and flavorful and builds in flavor and strength as the bowl burns down. ☆☆☆1/2. I think this may eventually get to 4 stars.

-Spiral Out

Bag note sweet cavendish, slight Latakia, topping could be vanilla vary faint. I would call it more of a coarse ribbon cut not fine. My bag was a bit dry I stored it in a sealed mason jar for 2 months. Extremely mild blend. I was not impressed with the first half of the bowl, all I tasted was the BC and The Latakia . At the halfway point it became much better as the flavors began coming out and blending . Sweet very lite blend some vanilla. I would defiantly consider this a lite English blend. Very lite nic hit. Required a few relights. This could be an all day smoke but I find it to be more on the lite side. The Latakia is very lite. It is a very simple lite blend not many flavors but extremely smooth. Great for people that are just moving from aromatics to English.

It’s sweet, spicy, woody, musty, and slightly aromatic. The balance between the Cavendish and Latakia is nice. The Virginia's are very faint. I love the first half, but then it gets kinda sour tasting. Four star beginning, but a two and a half star end.

As a newer pipe smoker, I am mainly exploring the different blends (I favor aromatic blends, although I am dipping my toes into the non-aromatic blends now) to find what I like.

Opening the bag, what I smelled was mostly the Lakita. It was not strong, but was really the only thing I was able to smell.

The flavor I tasted was again Lakita, it was very one-dimensional but strangly it was not a strong Lakita taste as the strength to me was mild/medium but I could not taste anything else. It was not a bad smoke at all, and one that could be great for someone just starting out their Lakita journey but lacked any other depth of flavors for me. Other reviewers mentioned sweetness and I can see that, but I didn't get this flavor for myself.

This came semi-dry, so no additional prep was needed. I did not have any tounge-bite with this blend.

Summary: a crossover English aromatic which keeps its toppings mild enough to let the Latakia emerge at just the right amount.

Crossover English blends got huge with "Frog Morton," but have been with us for some time, since they both spice up the aromatic genre and rein in the Latakia from being a flavor shillelagh that clobbers everything else in the blend. "Northwoods" comes to us from the Scottish tradition, since it has Cavendish mixed in, but also has a topping of something like rum, maple, and cherry. I detected zero "urinal cake" scent, but in my experience, anything fruity plus alcohol generates a little bit of tin note that might resemble one of those ubiquitous pink pucks. This tames the Latakia, which is here in generous but not excessive proportions, but also dominates the Virginias, which really shine in the second portion of the bowl. It feels like small amounts of Burley might be present as well. The topping takes the role of the Orientals, and instead drops in a fruity sweetness, onto which the Latakia rolls like fog over a cold morning lake. This brings out the woody and incense-like flavors of the wood and herbs used to fire cure the Latakia, but keeps them in proportion, making for a mild and satisfying English smoke. This might be too flavor-intense for an all-day mixture, but it is perfect for an early night reading session, which is how I prefer it.

Mild, sweet, and straightforward. A very middle-of-the-road blend that has more sweetness than your average English blend. The cavendish adds a slight brown sugar addition that reminds me of a sweet dry rub on BBQ. Just unique enough to be noteworthy. 7/10 for me.

On my first session with this blend I was ready to earn my "Contrarian" Badge and give this a 2-star rating. Opening the canister the Latakia is the most prominent aroma, so I was really taken aback when upon first flame I didn't taste any Latakia at all - but chocolate!

Yeah, yeah, it says no flavoring, but I've also read in interviews that there is a "secret ingredient," and that must be chocolate. Maybe it's only in the casing and not added as a flavoring, or maybe there's none at all, but that is my perception. I mention this just to warn any others who don't care for chocolate in their smoke. Given that Lane 1Q is the best-selling baccy in America (tastes like chocolate Ovaltine to me) I know I'm in the minority here.

Chocolate aside, it must be made clear that this is definitely an English-Aromatic in the tradition of Frog Morton, or Cult Embassy. After my initial shock, and knowing now what to expect, I have been able to derive some pleasure from this blend.

Letting this dry out for 90 minutes before loading the bowl helps diminish some of the chocolate which also allows some of the wonderful clove-like Turkish/Latakia spice to come through. In direct A-B back and forth comparison with Frog Morton I found this to have deeper flavors and better focus (FM has always seemed somewhat muddled on the palate to me).

Verdict: based on the quality of the components this deserves no less than three stars. For those who like the idea of a chocolate-infused English aromatic, this could very well be a 4-star winner.

I like this blend. My smoking tastes have become quite varied in these latter years. I've been mostly an Aro & Flakes guy but nowadays I'm developing a taste for the English & American-English blends. I would classify this one more as the latter ... well HECK if for no other reason it's blended in the good ole US of A! In my opinion, the Black Cavendish marries well with the Latakia to produce a cool, slightly sweet, woodsy & flavorable smoke that doesn't bite. Better yet, for me personally this blend doesn't dry out my throat & mouth as do some Englishes. IMO ... this could very well be an all day smoke. Additionally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Boswells is a fine establishment to patronize. Not many brick & mortar pipe tobacco shops around anymore ... I hope someday I'll get a chance to drop in while passing thru PA.